nine2five 2,6 Photo Op
by Marc Vun Kannon
Summary: Frost sends Chuck to meet a man named Tuttle. Casey goes to LA with a team of Intersect wannabees. Carina has to solve a murder in Castle while Volkoff makes a visit to the Buy More.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N **My gratitude to all the new and continuing Chuck readers and writers out there. I'm very glad to see all the new stories about my favorite show.**  
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Edit 1/26/14: This chapter has been modified slightly, to make the timeline clear. All the events are the same.

* * *

><p>"<em>What have you done?"<em>

"_What the hell is wrong with you people?"_

"_She's more of a mom than my mom ever was." _

"_I don't want to be alone just now."_

* * *

><p>"Are you alone, Frost?"<p>

The sound of her voice was welcome, the only part of her he was going to get tonight. "Yes, Alexei. They carted Wheelwright off to his padded cell a few hours ago."

Where he belonged. For a second Volkoff mourned the idea of the billions that toxin was worth, except that everyone would destroy whoever had it. Some ideas were just too big. "And our payment?"

"Will be delivered as soon as they can figure out which account to deduct it from. 'Payoff to foreign arms merchant' isn't a recognized GAO category."

"It isn't a payoff, it's a bounty, they should have a category for that. We delivered an international terrorist to their doorstep, with his weapon." Better than nothing.

She sounded mildly surprised at the idea. "I'll suggest it to them."

"Make it fast, Frost. I want you home as quickly as can be." He heard the sound of a keyboard in the background.

"Email sent, now I have to leave. Arrangements have already been made for transport. Soon I'll be home."

That news was very welcome to his ears. Not so welcome was the news, when it came, that she never made the flight.

* * *

><p>Chuck pulled up to his house, but didn't pull into his driveway immediately. Something was in the way, a panel wagon with the logo of a fictitious carpet cleaning firm on the side. "What are they doing <em>here<em>?"

Sarah went for the door. "Believe me, I intend to find out!"

"Stop, stop," said Chuck, grabbing her shoulder. "Let's do it right. Grab your wig, I'll get the boxes." He pulled on his hat, brushing his hair up under it to hide the curls. When he stepped out of his car he stood a bit shorter than his usual height, and went to the back of the car for the boxes.

Sarah put on low shoes, slouching a bit as she grabbed some bags. Together they walked up to the door of their own house and rang the bell.

A man's voice called out, "Who is it?"

"Special order from Sabado's," said Sarah, with an accent of no obvious origin.

A man opened the door, tall and curly-haired. "Excellent. Right on time, come on in."

Chuck and Sarah walked in, wondering what a CIA cleaner crew was doing in their house. "Oh thank God," said Chuck, standing tall as the door closed behind him. "That really kills my thighs." He put down the boxes and took off his hat, handing it to the tall man.

Sarah handed the wig to the blonde woman standing by, but the other woman just smiled and took off her own wig instead. "You guys want to tell us what you're doing in our house?"

"Sorry, Agent Bartowski, " said the woman, in a nasal voice, "That's above our pay grade. You'll have to talk to Agent Miller, she's the one who called. Where do you want us to leave your car?" she asked, pulling on Sarah's coat.

"Carina?" asked Chuck, signing off on the repairs. "Why?"

"Don't know, don't wanna know," said the tall man, shrugging. He and the woman took the empty boxes, and Chuck's keys, and left in Chuck's car.

"Kind of a waste of time, talking to them, Mister B," said the crew chief. "They're just doubles. Agent Miller had a real knock-down drag-out with some other agent. Good thing we had specs on most of your possessions. We managed to save your albums, too, but I'm sorry about the computer. We'll have to get you another one of them later, it ain't standard."

"My computer?"

"Yeah." The chief turned, snapping his fingers, and one of his men handed him a flat black piece of plastic with a knife sticking through it.

Chuck held the laptop as Sarah pulled out the knife, but the holographic projector had seen better days. "You won't find another one like this, chief," said Chuck, running his fingers across the lid of a computer he'd last seen going into his mother's bag. "She's one of a kind."

* * *

><p>Casey sat in his darkened living room, a bottle of Black at his side. One hand held a glass and the other one held a gun. One of them was shaking.<p>

Only a fool is never afraid, and John Casey wasn't a fool. He knew his fears, kept them close, as close as any other enemy. He knew them all, intimately. He thought he did, anyway, but now he knew he had a few more chinks in his armor. He had to close them up, had to deal with them somehow.

He had to get away, before he killed Morgan Grimes. Not that Grimes had done anything to deserve it. He'd been nothing but a gentleman around Alex. Sure it was easy to say that was only because of fear, but the fact that Morgan knew how to _be_ a gentleman was the important part.

No, Chuck Junior wasn't the problem, Carina was the problem. She'd played him expertly back there, used his fears about Grimes and Alex to make him angry, angry enough to drive off the fear, restore his focus. He had to thank her for that.

Thanking Carina didn't make it onto his list of top 100 things to do, and he really wanted to kill somebody.

The phone rang, and his hand twitched, but he wasn't that far gone. Yet. The screen showed no caller ID. He took a sip and let the phone ring again. "Who is this and what do you want?"

"A girl doesn't like to be stood up, Colonel," said Director Bentley.

* * *

><p>Ellie opened the door to her house the next morning, followed by Honey and her son Devon in the rear, carrying all the little presents for the baby when he or she finally arrived. A dictionary and an encyclopedia, and of course an atlas, because, as Honey put it, "National boundaries don't change overnight."<p>

"I'm so glad you stayed, Honey," said Ellie through a fixed smile. Something else to thank her mother for, kidnapping her in plain sight yesterday. Now Honey would _never_ leave, and of course she wanted to be close in this time of crisis. "Our guest bedroom is right through there."

"Thanks Ellie," said the older woman, her mentor and role model. She grabbed the bucket with her spray bottle, brush, gloves and paper towels. "I think I'll just go…freshen up a bit."

Ellie looked for her husband but of course he was nowhere to be seen. "Fine." As the maternal Woodcombe left, her son reappeared from the small room where they had all of the baby's stuff put away until the guest bedroom was empty again. Hopefully very, very soon. Ellie's smile faded. "Thanks, Devon."

"Hey, no problem, babe," he replied amiably. "Can't have the mother of my baby straining herself with those big heavy books."

She tapped the top of his head as he addressed her belly yet again. "Up here, daddy man. What's behind your back?"

"Oh, check this out." He showed her the little bear Honey had dismissed back at the store. "Good thing we didn't buy one, your brother came through in the clutch." He touched a little piece of paper on the collar, with Chuck's name. Grinning widely, Devon squeezed the bear's body again.

* * *

><p>"Agent Miller," said General Beckman. "The documents you uncovered about Project Isis have been validated and are genuine. The project was shut down twenty years ago, when Agent Frost went rogue. You and Colonel Casey have my authorization to bring her in, if that should be possible at this late date, but <em>you<em> are team lead." Carina being the most objective and reliable member of the team in this situation. On paper.

"If it's all the same to you, General, can I have your forgiveness, rather than your permission?" Carina tapped a control, bringing up a window to cell A, _her_ cell, and its current occupant.

If Carina was hoping for any expression to appear on Beckman's face other than the usual one (that of someone herding cats for a living), she was disappointed. Beckman was beyond surprise at most of this team's accomplishments, and the sight of Frost sitting shackled in a cell was no exception. "I would have thought, Agent Miller, that after last year you would have learned to be more…discreet. _My_ forgiveness isn't what you should be hoping for."

Carina shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "It's not like I planned it," she said to the table. "I had a hunch, so I thought I'd kill time while I was waiting for your decision."

Beckman noticed the décor of the wall behind her, part of the CIA secure wing. "You have a second cell already picked out, I presume?"

Carina cleared her throat. "I don't think I'm in any danger there, ma'am. I may find my password getting changed twenty times a day, but Chuck really isn't the violent type." She'd almost rather he was. The last time he had a boom to lower, he let it hang six months before dropping it.

"Well, we'll find out, won't we?" The phone rang at Beckman's elbow. "I wonder who that could be." A tap on the controls and another window popped up, wide enough for two, if they were cozy. Chuck and Sarah had no problem with the space. "Good evening, Chuck, Sarah."

"General," said Chuck politely. "Carina."

Carina blurted out, "Casey was supposed to tell you!"

"Tell us what?" asked Sarah. "That you were going to go behind our backs, or that he already had?"

_None of that. _"On my orders, Agent Bartowski," said Beckman. "This sort of operation threatens team cohesion, so it can only be required at the highest level." _Take it up with me, if you dare._ "Colonel Casey and Agent Miller weren't going behind your backs, they had your backs. Otherwise the capture would have been accomplished by a black ops team and you'd never have known anything happened, and Chuck would never see his mother again."

"So I can see her?"

"Absolutely not, Mr. Bartowski, and that is a direct order from me. Tomorrow she goes to a black site for debriefing and that will be the end of Project Isis."

* * *

><p>Chuck squeezed Sarah's hand so tightly under the table that she almost cried out in pain. Instead she squeezed back.<p>

"So you and Carina take my mother away from me just when I get her back, and you want us to thank you for it? _Ow!_" He pulled his hand up, shaking his fingers.

"Chuck, clearly you weren't listening," said Beckman, teacher to pupil. "Agent Miller knew what had to be done and knew it would hurt you, but even then she didn't do it. _I_ made the call to have your mother brought in. I made the call to take her away from you, that's what being a commander is all about. And no, I don't expect you to thank me." She looked regretful, or hopeful, or maybe both. "I don't expect you to feel grateful to Agent Miller either, but I do expect you to recognize the correctness of her actions, on your behalf, and respond appropriately. Is that clear?"

"Yes, General," said Chuck. He looked at Carina, and said, with some degree of stiff formality, "Thanks for having my back, Carina, but I can't really say I hope you were right."

Carina nodded. "I know, Chuck. We all do. It was just a hunch, anyway, I almost wish I _had_ been wrong, about that at least."

"You had a hunch she'd be in our house?"

"It was reasonably safe and secure, and you weren't there. She'd been away twenty years, I can see her wanting the, the…the sense of you, if she couldn't have you."

Even Beckman looked surprised. "That's more insightful than I would have expected."

"It did sound good, didn't it?" said Carina with a grin. "I just imagined Sarah having to keep her distance from Chuck for twenty years and wondered where _she'd_ go."

She'd go crazy. "Twenty _years_?" asked Sarah, appalled.

Beckman smiled. "Twenty days would be more than adequate."

"Twenty minutes," Carina corrected herself.

"I'm not that bad," protested Sarah. She stuck out her tongue at her friend.

"And on that note," said Beckman, "This meeting is adjourned."

* * *

><p>John Casey did something he never thought he'd do in his life. He engaged the privacy screen on his TV communicator. Just in time, as the doorbell rang, once.<p>

Of the three women outside his door, Director Bentley was by far the shortest, but she more than made up for it in confidence and authority. "May we come in?" she asked. Not a question.

He stood aside and watched the two unknowns as they passed. He could spot the makeup at this range, it looked like the blonde had taken a few hits recently. The black one was tall, and stood very straight, as straight as him. She seemed to approve of him already. He wasn't quite so ready.

Director Bentley made a quick turn, taking in the entire room. "You'll pardon me for asking this, Colonel, but are we secure?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Allow me to introduce Captains Victoria Dunwoody–" the blonde saluted "–and Robin Noble." She also saluted.

"Captains," rumbled Casey, with a salute of his own.

Bentley approved. "They're your new team."

* * *

><p>Chuck sat next to his wife, refusing to get his hopes up. "So why was my mother here, Sarah? It wasn't to get a 'sense of me', whatever that is. She didn't want to get to know me at the playground, why would that change?"<p>

"Twenty years is a long time, Chuck. She spent a bit of time with Ellie, maybe that changed her mind." Sarah stood up, casting her eyes over her domain. "A mother, about to be a grandmother, I can understand it."

Chuck tapped the ruined laptop. "Probably wanted to check NORAD, see if the arming codes were still the same."

"Chuck, stop it. However painful it was for you, it had to be much worse for her. She had to actually do it." Sarah walked, away from the very idea, silently damning Carina for putting it in her mind. Toward something, anything, less painful to think about. Like…her favorite photo, reframed yet again, positioned not quite right on their new end table, so she changed the angle. She didn't want to bury it in a book, not that it would have been any safer there. Their photo albums. All on a high shelf, but still in harm's way.

She frowned. Not likely. Not _there_. That shelf was intact.

The chief said they'd been damaged, so they had to be out. If they were out, maybe she took them out, looking for something, maybe, or maybe just all the history she'd missed. Something else they had in co–"Sweetie?"

Mother? Mother who? "Yes, Sarah?" said Chuck, walking away from his own troubles to tend to whatever put that tone into her voice.

She turned, holding a small book full of stiff black pages. "Where did this come from?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **I don't know about you, but it always bothered me that that little bear was just left in the street when Frost was apprehended. Chuck could have at least brought it back with him. Anyway, I decided to make a better use of the poor thing.**  
><strong>

In canon, the male Greta's name was Richard Noble, but there doesn't appear to be a female version of the name Richard, so I used something else that started with R.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** I had to edit the previous chapter slightly, to make the timeline clear. No events have been changed, just the ordering of them is a bit different.

* * *

><p>"<em>Are you alone, Frost?"<em>

"_A girl doesn't like to be stood up, Colonel."_

"_I'm not that bad." _

"_They're your new team."_

* * *

><p>"What are these?"<p>

Chuck folded back a page, the ancient paper of the book cracking at the edges. "As a first approximation, I'd have to guess they were photographs."

Sarah sank back in her seat. "Brilliant deduction, Sherlock, no wonder you're the…you know."

Chuck held up a hand, fingers almost touching. "I'm sure you were _this close_ to figuring it out yourself. Or were you talking about the car?"

Sarah threw a cushion at him, but he deflected it with his native powers of pillow-fu, no flashing required. "Of course I meant the car."

"Well, unfortunately it looks like none of America's enemies ever attacked her in a '68 Mustang, so we're stuck with my powers of deduction, which, I have to tell you–" he paused for breath "–are coming up a little short, except to say that the guy must be a bit strange. I mean, seriously, who takes this many pictures of a car?"

"Casey's got a photo album for each Crown Vic he's ever owned."

"Okay, a) I stand by my statement about strange, and b) how on Earth would you know something like that?"

"I saw them in his apartment, back in LA. When you blew up that last one with the missile, one of the albums disappeared from the shelf. I found it in a cupboard, under a piece of black cloth."

"You snuck into Casey's house?"

She shrugged. "It was a bit of a down time, mission-wise, and I didn't want to get rusty."

Chuck was about to turn the next page when he was struck by a thought. "You don't suppose he names them, do you?"

Sarah sat forward again, taking the book back. "He's not that strange. Just his guns. Who's the girl?"

Chuck craned his head to look. "That's Ellie."

"_That's_ Ellie?"

"Yeah, she changed a lot growing up. We don't have any pictures of her when she was this young though." His eyes got wide. "You know what this means?"

"That your mother probably took those albums with her when she left, and brought this one back as a clue?"

"No, that my dad was probably the guy who took all these pictures! Oh, the horror…"

The doorbell rang. "Deal with it, sweetie," said Sarah, getting up to answer it. She didn't look out the peephole, of course. It was really a camera, and the mirror doubled as a viewscreen. "It's Ellie and Devon." Biometrics looked good, no obvious signs of coercion. She opened the door.

Chuck closed the book. "How remarkably coincidental." He picked it up and stood, turning around. "Hey, Ellie, Devon. Oo, nice bear!"

"It's for you," said Ellie, holding it out.

He took it, looked at the collar. "A ballerina named Chuck?"

Sarah suddenly thought about ballerinas, and her arm spasmed as she closed the door, making it slam. "Sorry."

"It's not the bear, bro," said Devon. "It's the message _in_ the bear." He held out a hand, and Chuck passed it to him. "You gotta squeeze the tummy, like this."

* * *

><p>"Why LA?" asked Casey.<p>

"Lots of reasons, actually," said Bentley. "You're very familiar with the territory, which has a disproportionately high incidence of clandestine operations, for areas of its type. Plus we can operate without too much interference from the agents already on station."

The two captains smirked at the reference to the Castle team.

"They might surprise you," said Casey.

"They're welcome to try," said Bentley, her voice indicating a complete lack of faith that they would ever succeed. "If they did somehow manage it, it would only cement our cover. Finally, the last thing we want for this team is any interference from your old team."

"I wouldn't call advice from the first and best Intersect agent in the world 'interference', Director."

"Agent Charles is a stroke of luck and a freak of nature, Colonel."

_Not a freak of nature. Accident of science, more like._ Not that he could point that out in front of the noobs. "Well, you're half right."

Bentley frowned. "I don't understand."

Loving husband, loyal friend, genuine hero. Probably not in her scale of values, but definitely a stroke of luck for the wife, the friends, and the country. "Doubt you ever will, either."

Somehow Director Bentley felt like she'd lost something, and she didn't like to lose. "If we're ever to get this project off the ground, we have to prove that it can work inside the heads of trained operatives."

"I've seen what happened when others tried."

"Those 'others' didn't have this Intersect team tweaking their code, Colonel. Are you in or out?"

"Oh, I'm in," said Casey. "If it works or doesn't work, I want to be there when it happens."

* * *

><p>"<em>Per fas et nefas<em>?" repeated Devon. "What kind of a code phrase is that?"

"It's Latin," said Chuck. "It means 'through right and wrong', a style of argument where the goal is to score points no matter what the other guy says, rather than resolve a conflict or discover truth. You see a lot of politicians and talking heads do it these days."

"Is that in the, uh…?" Devon tapped the side of his head.

"No," said Chuck, holding up his phone. "Googled it."

"So what does it mean?" asked Ellie.

"It means we can't trust her," said Sarah, instantly.

"It could," agreed Chuck. "It certainly sounds like a 'win at any cost' type of strategy, granted, but it could also mean that this Tuttle guy is classically educated, snobby Latin phrases and all that." He smiled for Ellie's sake. "I'll find out when I meet him."

Sarah stepped up. "I'll take this meeting, Chuck."

"Hello," said Chuck, waving the toy in her face. "Not seeing your name on the bear."

Sarah pulled out a knife. "Hand it over."

"Hey!" shouted Devon, taking back the bear. "Let her take the meeting, Chuck."

* * *

><p>Ellie placed the ancient photo album carefully between the seats. Devon drove, leaving her hands free to make the call. "Carina? It's Ellie."<p>

Groan. "I hope you're not calling about those damn cakes again."

Hannah's wedding cake. It had been ages since she even thought about that. "No, she decided to go with a traditional–Carina, focus! Chuck and Sarah went to take a meeting with Mom's contact, some MI-6 guy named Tuttle."

Carina started moving, loud enough for Ellie to hear it. "Who? How'd you hear about him? Chuck didn't go sneaking around behind _our_ backs this time?"

"No, he didn't. Mom left him a message at my house." She put her phone to the bear's body and squeezed. "He and Sarah left to take the meeting together," she said when the message finished. "But they couldn't agree who was primary and who was backup–"

So many alarm bells went off that Carina had trouble sorting them out, so she bundled them up and grabbed hold. "So you want me to be backup for both of them. I can do that. Let me start checking."

"Thanks." Ellie ended the call.

"Okay, babe," said Devon. "You've done all you can do, so just relax, okay. They'll meet this guy, clear your Mom's name, it'll all be fine. You got nothing to worry about."

"What makes you think I'm worried?"

"You're choking the bear."

* * *

><p>Not much time. Chuck and Sarah had to drive in, not to mention doing some recon before setting up, all of which would take a while. Carina would have liked to put that time to best use by checking into this Tuttle character, but MI6 wasn't going to be forthcoming with handler info at the best of times. After giving them a black eye in Somerset, these were hardly the best of times. They'd be going in blind on that front. Still, she made the request, just so she could say she had. Now to find out what she could about the tavern…<p>

* * *

><p>Sarah plowed through the doorway of the establishment, immediately unhappy with the layout of the venue. Booths down one end, absolutely unsuitable for a number of reasons. The bar, ditto. Tables this way, but none of them placed so that both she and Chuck could sit with their backs to a wall. The best she could find was a corner spot, where 'corner' was defined as a wall on one side and a row of serving carts on the other. As long as they were both vigilant, no one could sneak up on them.<p>

"Uh, Sarah?" said Chuck, right behind her. "We're supposed to be here under cover, but you're looking like a spy checking the exits."

"I _am_ a spy checking the exits," she muttered.

"Yes, but a little subtlety goes a long way. You're supposed to look like a wife having lunch with her husband." Chuck led her straight to the table she'd already decided on, holding out the chair nearest the wall for her to sit.

She settled in, scanning the room yet again.

"Can you see the specials from where you're sitting?"

"Chuck, we're not there to order food," snapped Sarah. The door opened and she turned her head to observe as someone walked in, looking shifty and suspicious. "What the hell is _she_ doing here? Did you call her?"

"Yes," said Chuck, a little annoyed. "Right after I got out of the car and right before you did, I snuck in a call to Carina and briefed her on our entire operation. Thank God she only broke the sound barrier and not the light speed barrier getting here."

Nerd snark she could handle. "I have to get her out of here, she could blow this entire operation."

_What operation? It's a meet-and-greet. "_She's sitting at the bar, drinking water."

"A beautiful woman in a bar, drinking water, at this time of day? And that doesn't shriek 'spy' at you?" Sarah shook her head. "You really have to learn to think more like an agent, Chuck." She caught Carina's gaze in the mirror and jerked her head slightly. "Be right back, sweetie." She gave him a kiss on the cheek and went to the ladies' room.

* * *

><p>The first thing Carina saw when she entered the bathroom wasn't Sarah, but an unattractive woman in a server's uniform, plucking nosehairs with a sharp pair of tweezers. <em>Just as well we're not here for the food.<em> Eventually, the woman noticed her in the mirror and stopped, pushing past Carina to the door, muttering "Excuse me" in a thickly accented voice.

A stall door slammed open and Sarah stormed out. "What are you doing here?"

"Calm down, Blondie, I'm only here for the beer," Carina said, trying for a lighter tone.

"Calm?" yelled Sarah, flinging her arms around. "How am I supposed to be _calm_? You know what a bundle of emotions Chuck is, but you still go behind his back and arrest his mother like that."

Carina moved to one of the sinks, but not the nose-hair one. "Chill out, Sarah, no need to drop F-bombs like that." She started rearranging her hair into a more artful state of disarray.

"I didn't drop one!"

Carina stared at her friend in the mirror. "Just checking. At least you're not _that_ far gone. So why are you wasting all this passionate intensity on me when you've got a perfectly good husband right outside?"

"You betrayed his trust and his family. You forced him into the open to prove his mother innocent."

Carina closed the distance between them, mainly so she wouldn't end up spilling classified beans in an unsecured location. The last time hadn't gone so well. "It was Casey's idea to pull up that file, not mine, and it was a good thing too. I can see her kids falling for her line, but I expected better from you. If that's the kind of trust you're talking about, I'll betray it every time."

Suddenly both ladies cringed, hands going to ears as their earpieces started squealing shrilly in their ears. Frantically they dug them out before they went deaf.

"What the hell was that?" asked Carina.

Sarah held her unit close to her ears, but the squeal had ended. "Chuck, are you okay? Chuck?"

Carina wisely got out of the way as Sarah took the most direct path to the door, which would have gone through her. By the time she got to the table, Sarah was already scanning the room for any sign of the men who'd taken her husband but left behind his phone, his watch, and his earpiece.

Sarah glared at Carina.

They said it together. "You've lost him."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **I had to reconsider my ideas for this story. I still want Chuck to best the A-Team in LA, but I don't want it to be so soon. So this story will be spread over two episodes to give them some time. There will probably be a few bits and pieces of other episodes mixed in as well.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N **This story is going to be a two-parter. At first I just wanted to have A-Team take some time to shake out properly, but now I have several more episodes added into the mix. Not all of them, of course, just the good parts. With that many storylines in the same place it took me a while to get the sequence of events to work out.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>"<em>What are these?"<em>

"_It certainly sounds like a 'win at any cost' type of strategy."_

"_You really have to learn to think more like an agent, Chuck." _

"_You've lost him."_

* * *

><p>Sarah drove, so Carina made the call. "What do you mean, Casey's been reassigned? What possible assignment could be more–he requested it? Yes, ma'am, we understand." Carina ended the call. "She didn't sound happy."<p>

"That makes two of us," said Sarah.

"You bet that makes two of us," said Carina. "I'm not a bit happy. After all she's done to you two, you still end up trusting this Frost bi–, um, person, and now look at you, us." Carina flipped a hand casually to include them both in this tar-baby of a CF of a mission. Which reminded her…"And that's the only thing she _was_ happy about, let me remind you. That it was 'us' and not 'you'." The two – three – of them, on an unsanctioned mission, based on spotty intel from an untrusted source.

"If you hadn't distracted me, I'd've been there."

"And you'd probably have been captured right along with him. If you hadn't distracted _me_, we'd've both been there. And maybe gotten our hands on this Tuttle character, or at least something more useful than a plastic fork."

Carina was being optimistic. The speed of the operation told them both that there must have been at least seven men involved, a bit much for two agents to handle. "I've gotten lots from less."

"I doubt you're going to find Chuck's location written on it in invisible ink. The only way you'd get that information from this piece of crap is if you took it to Frost's neck and threatened to rip out her jugular." She picked up the bag and stared at the thin white utensil. "Can you do that? I don't think I can do that."

Chuck may whine a good game, but when the chips were down he wouldn't budge, and neither would his mother. "I don't need Frost for that," said Sarah. "If she rotted in her cell and I never saw her again that'd be just fine with me. Once we get back to base we'll know exactly where Chuck is."

Carina was no fool. "You put in a new chip, didn't you?"

"Of course."

High tech silicon chips, lodged bone deep. "Bet he loved that."

No, he didn't love it, although Sarah had to admit he took it better than she thought he might. Getting 'killed' with a needle gun had certainly done wonders to put some of his more baby-ish fears in proper perspective. She clenched her hands on the wheel, to hide the shaking. "I can keep him safe, that's what matters."

"Yeah, I see that."

"Don't start that again. His screamer hasn't gone off, I can still get him back."

* * *

><p>"He's where?" asked Ellie.<p>

"West Virginia," said Sarah, her free hand flexing around a little rubber ball. Keeping up her grip strength, that's all. "Moving fast and straight, has to be in the air. Volkoff had a jet waiting. Carina and I are gearing up to follow, but intercepting them will be the hard part." _Can't exactly shoot them down._

"Go get him, Sarah."

"I will, Ellie, don't worry." She ended the call and flung the ball down, making it bounce off the floor and the wall back to her, and she reached out to–

Carina snatched the ball out the air. "Later for that, Beckman wants us." She turned toward the door, flinging the ball against another wall, sending it caroming around the room to end up in a bucket full of rubber balls. They were gone by then.

"Agent Bartowski, Agent Miller, you're ready to take off?"

"Yes, ma'am," they assured her, solid and professional.

"And Agent Frost?"

She sent her own son into the lion's den. "What about her, ma'am? Until we get Chuck and Tuttle back we still have no way to determine her true loyalties. Best to leave her off the playing field."

Beckman looked unhappy. "Ordinarily I'd agree with you, Sarah. But we've received a request for additional forces, from Castle."

One doesn't just say 'So what?' to Generals. "Didn't they just _get_ some new blood?" asked Carina.

Beckman nodded, not at all surprised that Carina kept track of where the new male agents were stationed. "Exactly, Agent Miller, emphasis on new. They got some trainees in the latest rotation, but they say they need some more experienced personnel , and having read their brief I agreed with them."

"We're already on a mission, ma'am."

"I think you will find their request dovetails with your mission parameters rather nicely, Sarah. They have recent intelligence that a mysterious and reclusive arms dealer is travelling from Russia to LA."

"Volkoff? He's never left there before."

"There are other arms dealers in Russia, unfortunately, but we find the timing suspicious," said Beckman. "If it is Volkoff, having his top lieutenant on hand may be useful. That's why I want you to bring Agent Frost with you to LA. She can enjoy the view from Castle's security cells as easily as from our own, but she'll be available should you need her."

* * *

><p>Devon was engaged in his two favorite activities, exercising hard and watching Ellie. She'd promised him 'for better and for worse', as well as 'in sickness and health', after all, but the better and the health were the only things he wanted to give her. She deserved nothing less, especially now, with her mother and his bringing so much uncertainty into her life. They were doctors, they didn't like uncertainty. He liked what he had now, a wife snuggled on the couch, reading her book with a smile on her face. "You still don't remember any of those car trips, El?"<p>

She flipped back and forth through the pages. "Some. Not a lot. I was so young in these, and asleep for a lot of the trip, too, from the look of things." She closed the book and set it on the table. "If Mom hadn't brought me this, I'd probably never have thought about it again."

Happy memories of better times. "Pretty nice of your mom to bring it back."

Ellie didn't let go of the album, though, her fingers drumming softly on the cover. "My mother abandoned us for the spy life, Devon, I don't think 'pretty nice' is high on her list of things to be."

He slowed his pace, partly because he was afraid he'd heard her wrong, but mostly because he was afraid he'd heard her right. "You think this is one of her spy games?"

Ellie picked the book up again, as if Devon's question had solidified her own certainty. "She was here, honey. She left the bear for Chuck, but she didn't leave the album. Why would she do that?"

"She knew we'd go to him…"

That stupid bear. But it fit. No one would think twice about a stuffed bear in a baby's room. "She left a message for him in our house."

He completed her thought. "You think she left a message for you in his?"

Why else would she be there? "It'd be just like her."

He slowed his pedaling and stopped, wiping his face with a towel as he thought about her words. "So what's the message?"

She pushed herself up off the couch. "I don't know, but I know exactly who to ask."

"Chuck may not be back for a while, El," said Devon gently.

She shook her head. "Not Chuck. Manoosh."

* * *

><p>"Hello, <em>Mom.<em>"

"Hello, _dear_, " said Mary Bartowski.

"You got Chuck captured by Volkoff's goons."

Mary looked concerned. "Are you sure it was me? I could have sworn I was sitting here the whole time," she said, rattling the chains on her manacles."I would be holding his backup responsible. Do you know who that was?"

Sarah's face became, if anything, even more mask-like. It wasn't a good look for her. "I don't suppose you have anything you might want to tell us? Something they might take into account at your sentencing, perhaps?"

Mary sat back in her seat. "That's quite an offer. You get your own husband captured, then you come to me looking like that, hoping I'll betray Alexei and get myself killed so that you can take my place."

"I don't work for Volkoff, unlike some of the people in this room."

"I'm sure you don't. I have complete confidence that at least one of us isn't a traitor." Mary sat forward. "The only thing I can do for you, Agent, is get my handler to trust you when he sees us together. If you can rescue him and your husband from the jaws of death, that is."

Sarah's fingers twitched.

The door opened. "Sarah," said Carina. "Perhaps you should check on our plane."

* * *

><p>Ellie was ticking off items on her fingers, not many before she'd run out of cleverness. As a doctor, she was more a detective than a spy. "…background analysis, time of day, anything you can think of. These photos are a clue, I'm sure of it, I need to know what they're a clue <em>to<em>."

Manoosh flipped the pages. A lot of pictures for just a car. Well, it's a machine. Machines have parts and parts have serial numbers. Plus it would be a good test of that pattern algorithm Chuck was using for _his_ project. Time to scan the photos. "You got it, boss."

* * *

><p>Sarah left to check on the plane's readiness.<p>

"Agent Miller," said her mother-in-law's voice over the speakers. "I just want to thank you for keeping my son company all those long, lonely months when he was travelling the world, searching for me. I'm sure it must have been a difficult time, for both of you."

Sarah stopped, and looked at the window.

"You're welcome," said Carina. "You're right, it was a very trying time. I was practicing my celibacy, and he helped me get through it like a real gentleman."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Frost. "I wish I could believe it, too, but the thing I believe most is that someone is listening to every word we say, and you'll say anything to stay on her good side. I've sat in on a lot of interrogations that weren't as nice as this one, and i know how you must feel."

"I'm not afraid of Sarah," said Carina.

On the other side of the glass, Sarah tensed. How quickly some people forget.

Inside the room, Carina continued, "But Mrs. Bartowski scares the piss out of me, and if you had any sense she'd scare it out of you, too. So shut your noise, unless you've got something to say that's useful to the mission." She turned and left. Sarah was long gone, of course, so she set the room's lockdown mode and continued their preparations.

* * *

><p>"It's in LA? How could that be, it's forty years old?"<p>

Happy birthday. "Ask me about electronics, not cars."

"Okay, how'd you find it?"

"Easy," said Manoosh with a smile. "There wasn't anything in the photos, no special inks, no chemicals, no chips. All these angles, all this litter, no way for a decent code to be hidden in all that. Finally I just figured it was the car, the plates on the front and the VIN–" he flipped over the first photo in the set "–on the back. Insurance companies track that data. You want to hear something strange, though?"

"Sure, although I may not agree with you about 'strange'."

"Check this out," he said, bringing up another file. "I did a search, and `found a listing for this vehicle, every week in the classifieds, for at least the last six months."

Her father used to send her messages in the classifieds. "That's a long time for a classic car to go unclaimed."

"Probably like you said. It's forty years old, probably a hunk of junk by now." To Manoosh a five-year-old computer was a hunk of junk.

"Maybe," said Ellie. "Or maybe it's waiting for someone."

* * *

><p>The man from Signals came back and informed Carina of a secure message. She got up to accept it, while he took her place as backup.<p>

"That poor man," said Mary. "I don't know who he's more afraid of."

Sarah looked down at the cuffs on the prisoner's wrists. "I doubt it's you."

Mary grinned. "I don't think so either. See, I told you we had a lot in common."

"I'm nothing like you."

Mary's hair jiggled, the only outward sign that she shook her head. "We both love Chuck more than ourselves. We both will do anything we have to do, to keep him safe."

Sarah frowned out the window. _True._

"We both know how painful and frustrating it can be, trying to be both a spy and a wife."

Sarah glared, not out the window. "It's–" _not._

"Complicated? I know." Mary sighed. "I hope you manage not to make a hash of things, like I did. I didn't mean to, of course, but that's the hazard of being a spy, isn't it? One does so many things one doesn't mean to, and then you forget how to be what you were."

"I have Chuck," said Sarah firmly. "He knows what I am. I can't lose myself when I'm with him."

"I had Steven," said Mary with a shrug. "I didn't mean to fall for him, either, any more than you meant to love my son, but that's just another of those things, isn't it?" She lifted her wrists, stared at the cuffs. "And here we are."

"You're on your may to prison, and I'm taking you there," snarled Sarah. "That's where we are."

* * *

><p>Mary heard footsteps behind her, and looked out the window. "If you say so." Carina walked past her and touched Sarah's shoulder, as if her partner wasn't already aware that something other than themselves was in the wind. Frost watched with some admiration as Sarah and her partner stepped through the usual dance, pivot-step, pivot-step, one of them keeping her in sight at all times. Carina even turned her back so Frost couldn't read her lips, not that she could but Carina didn't know that.<p>

Sarah's face was remarkably expressive for a spy. Something good but strange, something bad that involved her. _Well, what didn't, these days? _Sarah returned to her seat in a much better mood, if the bounce in her step was any indication. "Good news?" asked Mary.

"Chuck's escaped," said Sarah.

* * *

><p>Frost's face went blank for a moment. "You don't look like you're all that thrilled at the news," said Sarah.<p>

"Just…not what I expected to hear, that's all." The elder Bartowski cleared her throat. "How did it happen? Did he contact you?"

"Not yet, but he's on the ground and the plane isn't," said Sarah, before she remembered who she was talking to.

Mary tried to look pleased. "Volkoff's men–" her men "–must have missed a tracker when they took him. I guess it's a good thing you're here to take me to prison, otherwise I'd have to punish them all."

"Yes, I…heard that you run his secret prison system."

"I do a lot of things." Mary stared at her hands. "Volkoff wouldn't be anything like what it is today, without me."

"You mean an emerging power in the international illegal arms trade, in the wake of the Ring's collapse?"

Now Mary did look pleased. "Is that what it looks like?"

"That's what it looks like," said Sarah. "And you just took credit for it."

Mary nodded. "So, what's the plan? It seems you don't need me as a bargaining chip with Volkoff anymore."

"Simple. We take you to Castle, throw you in a hole, I go get my husband. Then we all go back to DC, throw you in a hole, and I go home with my husband."

"Your hands are shaking."

"I'm relieved."

"Of course you are, dear."

* * *

><p>No one met them at the airport. No one answered on the comms.<p>

Sarah called Hannah.

"Thank God you called," said her friend, on speaker. "We really need you to get over here right away."

With a gesture Sarah dispatched Carina to get transport. "What's the matter?"

"We've had a murder in Castle."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 "**First Fight, A-Team, and Murder. That's five."

"Three, sir."

"Three."

And I'm not done yet.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N **The people who wrote these episodes came up with just tons of really great stuff for their stories. It's too bad so much of it was just used once and discarded.

* * *

><p>"<em>She didn't sound happy."<em>

"_I don't think 'pretty nice' is high on her list of things to be."_

"_Mrs. Bartowski scares the piss out of me." _

"_We've had a murder in Castle."_

* * *

><p>"You want <em>me<em> to take point?"

"No, Carina, I want Frost to take point," said Sarah. "Of course it has to be you, Hannah and I are friends, I can't be objective. I can think of a lot of things Hannah may be to _you_–"

Carina looked out the window, unhappy. "But 'friend' isn't one of them."

"Yes, but she's not an enemy, either, and you respect her, if nothing else." Sarah drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, impatient at the light. If this had been a company car she'd at least have had a missile to clear traffic. "Besides, I have to go get Chuck. If everyone in Castle is together in the briefing room, no one's monitoring his signal. He could be anywhere by now."

"Not given where he was, and where he was headed," said Carina, purposely vague in front of the prisoner. "All right, I'll take the case, since it's not be a cold crime scene. I hate cold crime scenes. And I want some proper groveling when I solve it without you."

"Yes, Sherlock," said Sarah, in a 'sure, sure' voice calculated to get the most out of her partner's ego. "Feel free to give Ellie a call when, I mean, if you get stuck. Or better yet, when I get back with Chuck–"

Carina sniffed. _Hmmp. _"He can watch you grovel, or be right down there on his knees with you, depending on how far you've poisoned his mind against me."

"I would never–!" Sarah clamped her lips together, glaring impartially at the world for letting Carina score one off of her. Well, not entirely impartially. She noticed Frost's expression in the mirror, one part sympathy, two parts…laboratory experiment. "And you! Shut it!"

Frost dropped any semblance of sympathy, and that suited Sarah just fine.

* * *

><p>The Buy More parking lot was full, as always. "We aren't going to have to go in there, are we?" asked Carina.<p>

Sarah drove slowly down the lane between the cars, just to draw out the suspense. "What's the matter, Carina? Afraid that Jeff and Lester have forgotten you?"

Carina could remember the creepy duo very well. "No, I'm afraid they'll remember me." She shuddered. "Good God, what is that?"

"What is what?" asked Sarah, looking the other way for a turn.

"It looked like a guy in a big green box with BM on the front. He–what the hell? What just happened?"

At a Buy More, could be anything. "I don't know, you tell me."

"A big van just pulled up in front of him, and now he's gone! We just saw a kidnapping!" She pulled out her phone.

"Carina."

The redhead looked up.

"That's the Buy More. You're better off not getting involved. Just…let whatever happens in the shopping center, stay in the shopping center." The car moved steadily away from whatever chaos unfolded behind them. "Fortunately, you'll be happy to know that the Orange Orange, with its primary access to Castle, is still open, thanks to generous public support," said Sarah, pulling up in back of the yogurt shop.

"The sign said 'closed'," said Carina.

"It would, wouldn't it?" replied Sarah, as they got out of the car. "With everyone locked down in Castle there's no one to open the door."

Carina stared in the window. Retail. Ugh. "You guys even staff the place?"

Sarah smiled. "Hannah handles the assignments. Each week she totals up the number of rules broken or protocols violated, and the worst offender is assigned to counter duty."

"They had a one hundred twenty seven percent performance improvement in the first month."

"Exactly." Sarah flipped up a secret decorative stone, and pressed her hand against the hidden pad.

The door buzzed, and unlocked. Carina pulled it open. "You're in the system?"

"This was my second cover job here," said Sarah, escorting Frost inside. "Believe me, after the first one I appreciated the upgrade."

"Yeah, you reeked of burnt sausage." Carina pulled the door shut, and felt the locks engage. "But shouldn't your prints have been deleted when you moved back to DC?"

"In any decently run, well-managed CIA substation, yes."

"Lucky for us this is Castle."

"Unlucky for someone," said Frost unexpectedly. "Killing in the line of duty is bad enough, but someone is dead down there who shouldn't be. You ladies might want to remember that."

"Look who's talking," said Sarah, handing the prisoner off to Carina as she walked to the freezer.

"In the illegal arms trade, one generally doesn't have to worry about killing innocents," said Frost calmly.

"Like that makes it better," said Carina, answering since Sarah was busy staring into the retinal scan.

The rear freezer door opened with a gust of fog as warm air met cold. Sarah pulled it all the way. The freezer must have been very cold, she was shivering. "It's showtime."

* * *

><p>"Ladies, gentlemen. I am Agent Carina Miller and I am heading up this investigation. Is that clear?"<p>

All eyes turned to the diminutive brunette seated at the head of the table. She looked at Sarah. Sarah shook her head. She nodded her understanding. "It's clear, Agent Miller. How do you plan to proceed?"

Agent Miller turned to her partner, who said, "Hannah" in a soft but clearly audible voice. Not that Carina didn't know who Hannah was, they'd met at Sarah's wedding ceremony, but they didn't want that fact to be obvious.

"My plan, Hannah, is to start at the beginning. In this case that is the body, probably the only thing in the base I can be sure isn't going to lie to me. We are going to secure our prisoner and then check the crime scene. You all will remain here under your own watchful gazes, until I return."

"'Until _you_ return'? What's she gonna be doing?" said one of the agents, pointing at Sarah.

A valid enough question. "We have a mission," said Carina. "My partner is going to leave us all locked in here while she goes to complete it. I expect to have this business all wrapped up by the time she gets back."

"You sound pretty confident," said Hannah.

"I am. Right now all of you are suspects. I expect the body will allow me to cross a few of you off my list, and we'll go from there."

"Wait, why are we _all _suspects?" asked another man. "We've been here for months," he continued, pointing at some of them. Then he waved at a cluster of younger faces, a blond male, a dark-skinned man with a beard, and a young woman. "We get these new guys and a week later one of them is dead. It don't take no genius to figure out one of them did it."

"Well, you're certainly the non-genius for the job," said Carina. She looked at Hannah. "Be right back."

At the cells, Sarah thumbed open the door and Carina marcher Frost inside, removing the restraints under Sarah's watch. "Sit. Stay."

Frost stayed, but didn't sit. "You realize I have to at least try to escape?"

Naturally Carina expected it, she just didn't expect her prisoner to be quite so blunt about it. Cover or not, Volkoff would certainly expect the attempt, but this was so not the time. "You do and I'll shoot you, Chuck's mother or no. I have enough to do, locked in here with these pinheads." She stepped back and watched Frost sit as Sarah locked the door.

On their way to the crime scene, Sarah asked, "Do you really want me to lock you in?"

Carina looked shocked, as if Sarah had just questioned her courage. "Of course I do. After you add my prints to the system so I can get out again, though."

* * *

><p>When they returned to the briefing room, they found an argument going on with full force, only Hannah and another young man still seated where they had been. Hannah was rubbing her head tiredly, but when she noticed Carina she shouted, "Attention on deck!" The two senior agents suddenly came to attention, and the noise level in the room dropped considerably.<p>

Carina looked them all over. "Would you two stand up, please?"

Hannah and the young man stood.

Carina nodded. "Good. You two, with me."

"Why them?" challenged one of the agents, as the designated pair walked behind Carina.

"The victim was tall, the knife went in straight, with the blade vertical, so it would have had to force ribs apart and probably get stuck." She pointed at the two she'd just cleared. "They're too short to make such a wound with the power needed, unless the victim let them bring up a step-ladder first, which I doubt he did. It had to have been one of you."

The remaining five suspects stared at each other.

Suddenly the dark-skinned young man started shouting. "Oh, I get it. Let's blame the swarthy, bearded guy!" He pulled away from the group. "This is just what my face looks like!" He pointed at Sarah. "We can't all look like swimsuit models, you know. Just so typical. Even if she'd been here and she'd done it, you still wouldn't suspect her!"

"Damian, please," said Sarah. "It's not–"

"Save it," he said curtly. "I'm outta here."

As he stalked from the room, Sarah turned to her 'boss.' "Should I go after him?"

"Why bother?" asked Carina. "He seems to have forgotten what 'lockdown' means. He'll be back. You go on and get our guys."

Sarah stuck her hands in her pockets. "Right." She cleared her throat. "Right, um, Hannah, I need a signal tracked. Which one of you–?"

"I'll do it," said her friend.

"Great."

* * *

><p>"Sarah?" said Hannah's voice over the secured channel.<p>

"Go ahead, Hannah."

"We just lost the signal." The car swerved, and Sarah almost missed the next few words. "I analyzed the coordinates. There's a bank near that location, it's possible they went inside."

"He jumped out of a plane to go to a bank?"

"It's the only explanation that makes sense of the loss of signal. Unless he went into the sewers."

Sewer or bank? Sewer or bank? Unfortunately there was only one of her. "I'll check the bank, I think."

* * *

><p>And there he was, her wonderful, wonderful husband. Tall, strong, a bit rumpled but who wouldn't be after the day they'd–wow, this was all only one day? Less than a day. <em>Carina was right, I<em> am _that bad_. "Chuck!"

"Sarah!" said Chuck, before she crashed into him and took his breath away in every possible sense.

"I'm guessing this is the missus you were telling me about," said a man with a strong English accent, after a moment. "It's true what they say, isn't it? True love is felonious. It robs you of the ability to utter a single word. It steals a heart. Truly, Charles, you are to be envied."

Chuck pulled back and gazed into that pair of blue eyes that owned his soul, before Sarah closed them and lay her head on his chest. "Don't I know it." He ran his hands lightly up and down Sarah's back. "Hey, you're trembling."

That wasn't trembling, that was his heartbeat resonating through her. _Lub. Dub. _Sarah murmured, "I lost you."

Chuck laughed, lightly. "Well, you can't have lost me too bad, since here you are." He turned toward Tuttle, and Sarah opened her eyes. "My Shakespeare-quoting friend is Gregory Tuttle."

"Not Shakespeare, Charles," said Tuttle, in low tones. "It's Jodi Picoult. I've never read any Shakespeare, but please don't noise that about." He looked around, as if expecting the Shakespeare police to arrest him. "It's the accent, you see. Everybody who hears it thinks I should know what comes after 'to be or not to be', and I've never even _seen_ Romeo and Juliet. They'd drum me right out of MI-6 if they knew."

"Well, you're in America now, " said Chuck. "Not knowing what comes after 'to be or not to be' is pretty much a national pastime, so I wouldn't worry about it getting back across the pond." Chuck clapped him on the shoulder. "Your secret is safe with us. It's the least we can do for the man who's going to clear my mother's name."

Tuttle brightened, brandishing his envelope like a sword. "Right you are, Charles! Just as soon as we get to London."

Sarah frowned. "Why London?"

Tuttle opened the envelope and pulled out a triangle-shaped floppy disk. "Frost was paranoid about this information being leaked, so she made me put it onto this. She said the computer was going defunct, so no one would be able to read it except us. MI-6 has the only one I know of, in London."

Chuck took the disk. "This is a disk for a Phalanx XR-12 computer. We don't have to go to London, there's another one right here in LA."

"Where, in a museum?"

Chuck was about to reply when a shotgun blast ripped through the building, turning patrons and tellers alike into a squealing, scurrying mob. Sarah reacted by reflex, tripping her husband and taking him down to the ground behind a desk. He grabbed Tuttle on the way, and they all fell together.

"You're kidding," said Chuck. "A bank robbery? Right now?"

Sarah bristled. "Seems a little coincidental, don't you think?" She had to get Chuck out of here, right now.

"It's not a robbery, Charles," said Tuttle, looking out from behind a low railing. "It's Volkoff's men, and that indestructible woman."

"You're saying they followed us? That they knew where we were all this time?"

"It worked for the Death Star, Charles," said Tuttle. "It's not like we had a tracker-sniffer available to us under all the sheep. They must be after the disk!"

Chuck's eyes narrowed. _They can't have it._

Sarah rolled her eyes. "There's five of them, and two of us. With no backup!"

"You do have surprise on your side," pointed out Tuttle.

"I don't think they're just gonna let us walk out the door, Sarah," added Chuck.

Sarah thought fast. They had to save the disk, but they had to do it before the police showed up and slowed their escape to a crawl. "Fine. Follow my lead."

"Fine," said Chuck.

"Fine," said Tuttle, "But I'll stay back here. I'm just a handler."

"Right," said Chuck. "He's just a handler."

"Right," said Sarah. "Get ready."

Chuck flashed.

* * *

><p>"That's very sloppy work," said Casey. "Are we sure it isn't a trap?"<p>

"So what if it is?" said Bentley. "You have two Gretas, each of them fully Intersect qualified, without any of Bartowski's…limitations."

"The target's moving live ordnance into a major metropolitan center."

"Bomb disposal is an Intersect skill, I'm sure your friend Chuck could tell you that. The only thing that will have a 'bang' on this mission will be the start of our new Greta program, earlier than even I'd anticipated." While Team Bartowski's career will end without even a whimper.

Too soon. "We need Chuck," said Casey.

"We _need_ the Intersect. Even in Bartowski, it made _real_ operatives like you and my Gretas, second-string players. Now that we've leveled the playing field, Bartowski can go back to the Buy More, where he belongs. Best be off, Colonel. International terrorists don't capture themselves, you know."

* * *

><p>Tuttle took the bullet. Sarah called it in as Chuck lay the wounded man on the floor, propped up against a desk.<p>

"Hannah, we've got a man down! Tuttle. He got us the disk but he's been shot. Mobilize the EMTs. We have to go…No, the disk will have to wait, we can't even read it…It's triangular, that's why…it's not like she's going anywhere…We have to get ready for Volkoff."

"…have to go…" muttered Tuttle weakly. "…save Frost…"

"What?" asked Chuck, tucking the triangular disk into his pocket. "Volkoff's coming _here_?"

Sarah held up a hand, and he stopped talking while she listened. "It's not Volkoff?...All right, what can you tell me about this Pichushkin?...Oh, God." She looked up at Chuck. "Live ordnance." Back down to the phone. "Do you know when or where?...Okay, we're on it. You support Carina, don't let her bold front fool you." She ended the call and stood up. "Dragan Prichushkin is bringing a live bomb of unknown magnitude into the center of the city." Which is not where they were. She started walking toward her rental, making up for its lack of speed as best she could.

Chuck sighed, and touched his pocket. "Sorry, Mom." He ran after his wife.

Behind them, Gregory Tuttle opened his eyes.

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **So this is the end of part one. This episode and the next, between them, will account for four separate canon episodes, scrunched down into two. The four chapters of the next story will be the conclusions to those four episodes.


End file.
